[sprint18]

I just wanted to address Tracy's response of additional costs to pocket books. He is correct this new tire will not add much to the costs currently. The big problem is the cost this rule added years ago. It has been adding hundreds to thousands of dollars each year to our pocket books, since the rule came into effect. Now you add the tire conditioning to the equation and it just keeps growing.
Pricing through American Racer by Lias Tire is RR $170 to $175 LR $165 Fr $130
Travis Welpott

[1121]

I’ve tried really hard to ignore this post. I was chastised a bit on this site the last time I posted on tires, so I’ve tried to just stay out of it.

But call it cabin fever for being snowed in or whatever, I’ve just got to post a few opinions. I know most of you think of my posts as being a bit light hearted, but I’ll try to be serious for a moment.

First of all, let me say as a very budget minded racer, I don’t care what brand tire I run, but I am a big believer in tire rules. And a specific tire (at least for the right rear) being called out for whatever series or track. And I truly feel that an open tire rule across the board would do nothing but drive the cost of tires up.

Now let me explain why.

Normally, in the real world, competition between two or more manufacturers of a certain product would drive prices down. Unfortunately, this also usually drives quality down, but that’s a discussion for another day.

The problem is that we as racers do not live in the real world! We live in a world where we would all sell our sister for an extra half second.

If we would open up the tires rules, (and I’m talking about across the board, not just a couple of tracks or a certain series), all of a sudden, the tire companies would have to start tire testing (more than they already do). Because it would no longer be about having a tire that would get through the night, it would be about having the fastest tire.

Now I know that many of you feel that the American Racer tire is the better tire, and that may be true. But what do you think would happen if they went head to head every week at every track to Hoosier? Hoosier would be testing to build a faster tire. Then when they did it, then AR would have to build a faster tire and so on. And who do you think pays for that tire testing? Do you think it would be the top teams that all of a sudden would be getting free tires? No! It would be us poor slobs that have to pay full retail for our tires.

And as far as cost, can any of you car owners out there say with a straight face that you wouldn’t pay an extra $20 for a half second? If you had a choice, of course you would. So in an open tire rule, how much would you pay? Let’s assume for a minute that Hoosier (or AR) has a real soft tire that would barely make it through the night, but was half second faster than anything else. How much would you pay? $20……$30……$40?

And if all of a sudden all the top teams were running these real soft tires that will barely make it through the night, what do you think that would do to the used tire market? There would be none. All of us poor guys would have to buy these more expensive tires new, rather than trolling for used ones.

Don’t think this is true? All you have to do is look at the Little 500. This race has an open tire rule. You can run whatever brand you want. Any other week, Hoosier pavement tires are about $15 more than American Racers. But during the Little 500, for whatever reason, Hoosier tires go up another $20. I don’t know where the $20 goes and it really doesn’t matter. So now a Hoosier RR is $35 more than an AR RR. So everything be equal, you would think that the American Racer tire truck would be swamped and the Hoosier guys would look like the Maytag Repair man. After all, an American Racer RR is $35 cheaper.

But that could not be farther from the truth. Since they opened the tire rule up three years ago, to the best of my knowledge every starting driver has had Hoosiers on. And before you all start squawking about the Hoosiers wearing out. In 2011, we were pitted right next the Chet Fillip and after I crashed my car, as I sat dejectedly, I watched Chet carefully, especially the pit stops. They ran the whole race on one set of tires, lead a lot of laps and finished fourth. So they can make the whole race.

With practice days, qualifying and the race, it would be conceivable for a team to save a couple hundred dollars the week of the Little 500 running the AR tires, but yet they don’t. There’s your preview to an open tire rule.

All that being said, I do think it should be a right rear only rule. I know that it sounds like I’m contradicting myself, but if you have a series that is running an different tire then what is “normal”, then making a first time team buy four (or more) new tires to just try the series out, just doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.

For example, Must See Racing (I know, it’s a pavement series and most of the dirt guys are nodding off right now, but stay with me a little longer) runs the American Racer Tire. And I have nothing against the tire. They have had look luck with it. But to go run with them, a team needs to buy four new tires. More if they want spares. So to run with them the first night, it gets pretty expensive. If you only had to buy a right rear (and most people would do this anyway) it would be a lot cheaper to run with them the first time.

Now I’m sure some of you are saying, “Just find some used tires.” The problem with this is that we are a very small team. We don’t have a lot of help. And dismounting 8-10 (so we have spares) tires and remounting them takes time that we really don’t have. I will admit this is one thing that keeps us from running more Must See races. That and a $50 sponsor. (A private joke between Jim Hanks and me)

But believe it or not, teams have a certain amount of control over this. If enough teams that want a different tire rule would just refuse to run the tracks that run the tire they don’t want, and let the track know why, they would be forced to change. Or drop the class, but that’s the chance you take. There are places that still have an open tire rule. Paragon and the BOSS Series come to mind. And both are great people to run with.

Yes, Hoosier does kick back money to the tracks or series, but this money is intended to be put in the point fund. HOSS’ point fund for example is primarily funded by tire sales. If American racer wants to participate, they might have to start doing this also.

Like I said, I don’t really care what brand tire I run. I do like knowing that I’m running the same tire as the big teams and that in my mind evens the playing field a bit.

By the way, the first time I ran into a tire rule it was in 1990 at Butler Speedway and it was a McCreary (now American Racer) MC-3.

Enough being serious, I promise my next post will be fun!

Tom Paterson
PDP Racing

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[Roy Bleckert]

http://www.hoseheadforums.com/forum.cfm?ThreadID=84035

"Mel at Circle Track received confirmation today that USAC/CRA will be switching to the Hoosier 105 - Medium tire that the West Coast 360's have been running. You will have the first 3 races of the season to use up your HTW tires. "

[johnnythunderhead]

I'm thinkin that every sanctioning body that has a tire rule is receiving $$$ from the thereof manufacturer either above board in sponsorship $$$ or better yet ( for said sanctioning body) under the table?

[1121]

There’s no big conspiracy. Hoosier writes a check to the sanctioning body or track. It’s all above board.

[DaveP63]

There was a time, not too long ago, when we would use up a couple of tires a night if the track was slick and I mean used up. I remember one night at THAT we burnt up three and had a couple more that were pretty ragged. I see nothing bad about USAC going to 16 inch RRs to be consistent with the other traveling series as long as they stick with it. You could have "open" rules and just go off a durometer reading, but then you get guys pissed because their preferred tires don't make the rating even though they are on the approved list. So what are you going to do? For the record, I always preferred McCrearys (AR) on dry tracks.

[jahmo55]

Promoters never give all the "Tire Money" back to the racers. If there is a point fund the top guys will get the most, as they should and the guys farther back still buy the same amount of tires but get less point money. Tire companies need to stop paying off the Promoters and cut the price of the tires to the racers.

[1121]

I'm beginning to think Bill had the best answer.

[sprint18]

Actually most of the local tracks here in Indiana put the money they are paid back to the racers. Most put it in the point fund and Gas City puts it back into the nightly purse. The point fund does only reward the top drivers but spreading it through the purse gives back to all participants that night that make the feature. The local tracks are working hard right now for a cheaper tire for the racers. They are working very hard to find ways to keep racing sustainable. The big thing is there is room for a cheaper tire and money for point funds. The local racers need tracks to race at and the tracks need the cars to have a race. They are working hard for us so we need to keep working together to keep this sport we love going for years to come.